Bursting at the seams with In-Progress Conversion Goodness, Junior finally made it out of Austin around 2 PM yesterday! The solar, fan, and bed are installed, everything else is in a huge, mostly organized pile of tubs and wire shelves. I Bogarted the sink system from the yurt, and elected, at the last minute, not to bring any propane or my convection microwave, so my electricity gobbling convection cooktop is my only way to cook. I don’t know if the solar system will be able to handle it alone, but once I get the alternator tie-in set up, I’ll be able to run the engine to get extra power if needed.

I finished the cargo bed in a single day of hard labor, making several changes along the way. I’m not really happy with the result, but it makes my 11 inch memory foam mattress hover on top of the massive pile of crap I need to bring with me on this six week trip and allowed me to GtFO, so I guess it’s not a total failure. I started with the Sketchup design for the yurt cargo bed and made a simpler, smaller version with space for the wheel wells. Without the wells it would hold twelve 48 quart tubs.

As I went close the fan for travel, I realized I had a pair of differentially alive passengers. The only thing creepier than a spider above your bed is a spider with another possibly dead spider in its mouth above your bed. Thank God the Maxxair has a remote control!

On previous trips to Portland, I’ve had the yurt or soul pad set up as a home base and primary residence, with access to the power grid, running water, and a bathroom. I have no idea how I’m going to be living in this wildly unfinished metal box for six weeks *while* converting

it, but I know I’ll be doing at about 15-20 degrees F below where I’ve been doing it in the pestilential solar hellhole that is Texas in summer. Despite my best efforts to get up early, I’ve done most of the work within a few degrees of 100 F, and it’s been fucking brutal. I also have no previous urban van stealth camping experience, so it will be quite the adventure!